All For No. 1 At Uconn

Top 25

Third-ranked Connecticut set itself up for college basketball history with a 77-70 victory against No. 10 Syracuse on Sunday in Syracuse, N.Y.

The Huskies (12-0 Big East, 19-1) extended their own conference record with 17 consecutive regular-season victories, but they also set themselves up for a possible move to No. 1 with losses last week by top-ranked North Carolina and No. 2 Kansas.

If Connecticut, which has never been ranked No. 1, does move to the top of the rankings today, it would be the first time teams from the same school have occupied the No. 1 spot in both the men’s and women’s polls. The Connecticut women (21-0) have been No. 1 since beating Tennessee in mid-January.

Connecticut’s latest victory gave it a two-game lead over Syracuse (10-2, 17-4), which it beat 86-75 earlier in the season. That game featured a 22-point turnaround in the final 11 minutes.

Ray Allen led Connecticut, which finished 2 for 11 from 3-point range, with 18 points. Donny Marshall and Travis Knight added 15 points each.

Syracuse’s Lawrence Moten, who came into the game needing 20 points to surpass Derrick Coleman as the school’s career scoring leader, finished with 17 as Connecticut frustrated him from the outside. Moten was 7 for 18, while the Orangemen were 30 for 73 (41 percent).

(1) N. Carolina 85, (18) Georgia Tech 81

Rasheed Wallace had 27 points, including seven dunks, as the Tar Heels (9-2 Atlantic Coast Conference, 19-2) snapped the Yellow Jackets’ (6-5, 15-8) 15-game home winning streak at Atlanta.

Travis Best led Tech with 20 points.

Carolina ended Tech’s run of four consecutive victories over No. 1-ranked teams, three of those coming over the Tar Heels and the other over Duke in a streak that began in 1993.

(5) Kentucky 97, Notre Dame 58

Walter McCarty scored 20 points - 12 in the first 5 minutes of the game - as the Wildcats (17-3) defeated the Fighting Irish (14-9) at South Bend, Ind.

It was the worst loss at home for the Irish since 1898, when they lost 64-8 to First Regiment. It also was the fifth win in a row over the Irish for the Wildcats. Notre Dame (14-9) has not beaten Kentucky since the 1989-90 season.

(17) Virginia 75, UNLV 65

Freshman Curtis Staples led an outside shooting assault by the Cavaliers (16-6), hitting a school-record nine 3-pointers in a win against the Runnin’ Rebels (9-10) at Charlottesville, Va.

Staples hit 9 of 12 from long range and finished with 27 points - eight better than his previous career high - as the Cavaliers won their fourth consecutive game. He broke the Virginia record of eight 3-pointers by Richard Morgan, set in 1989 against North Carolina.

Virginia guard Harold Deane hit 5 of 11 3-pointers and matched his career high with 28 points.

Indiana 82, (25) Purdue 73

Alan Henderson scored 26 points and freshman Charlie Miller had a season-high 21 as the Hoosiers (6-5 Big Ten, 14-9) snapped the Boilermakers’ (7-3, 16-6) sixgame winning streak.

The 6-foot-7 Miller, whose best previous game was 16 points against Northwestern, had 12 points in the final 10 minutes after Purdue cut a 16-point Indiana lead to three.

Indiana never trailed, but lost its big lead early in the second half when Purdue started hitting 3-point shots.